The roots of Easter
The roots of Easter go deep into time, all the way back to events in Genesis and Exodus. They are spread within statements and events all through the Old Testament. We saw the foreshadowing of Christ’s role as redeemer in the dream of Abraham found in Genesis 15. We saw the foreshadowing of His substitutionary death in the first Passover instituted when Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt after the last plague. It’s there where we pick up today.
Christ is linked inextricably to the Passover. After three years of life in the public eye, living out all the prophecies spoken of Him throughout the Old Testament, it all came down to one night, Passover night. The Gospels record what we call The Last Supper. What most of us do not connect to it is the fact that before He went to the Garden and fully accepted His task, Christ shared the formal Passover meal with His disciples. In instituting communion then He was showing us that He was the fulfillment of the initial Passover lamb and sacrifice. It is why he broke the bread and told His people that they were to eat the bread as if it were His flesh. It is also why He took the wine and likened it to His blood. Blood is the seat of life and was sprinkled on the altar when a sacrifice was made. The sacrifice and the meal showed that the Jewish people understood they shared in the sacrifice and its effects by the graciousness of God. It also showed they understood that God was both the author and sustainer of all life. It was those two meanings, the sharing of grace and the acknowledgment of God’s provision for every aspect of life, that Christ wanted to point out and perpetuate.
The events of the next three days, the mock trial, the brutality of the death, and the predicted resurrection are also the distant past to us. Communion is our link to those times, our commemoration of the foundation of our faith.
History adds to that foundation. Christ suffered a public death that did not go unnoticed. Roman historians such as Pliny the Younger, Cornelius Tacitus, and Suetonius all mention Jesus. Two secular Greekspeaking historians, Thallus and Phlegon do as well. Writing for his Roman masters, the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, mentions Jesus. Perhaps the most scandalous of all was
Lucian of Samosata. He was a satirist who mocked the early Christians for putting their faith in a man who died on a cross, a punishment reserved for slaves, murderers, and criminal non-citizens in general. The general feeling in the Roman Empire as Christfollowers increased was that they were insane. And yet.
And yet, the faith spread, and kept spreading despite concerted efforts to stamp it out. Its central tenet, the claim that Christ rose from the dead, could only be disputed, never disproved. The inconsistencies in the cover-up story were glaring. Guards who failed in their duties in matters like this were executed. But those men were still alive! Picture this. These guards, somewhere between four and 16 of them, were so derelict that they all laid down and slept at the same time. A group that had to be at least six or so men then intruded, broke the seals on the tombstone, rolled back the heavy stone, entered the tomb, and carried out a stinking corpse. All the while they awoke no one and left no trace of their passage. It was all just too improbable to believe, and I am not talking about the fact of the resurrection!
Events followed rapidly, proving Christ’s resurrection. They all center around the accounts of multiple witnesses, once as many as 500 at the same time, seeing Him alive, speaking, eating, and drinking.
For a detailed examination see: “The Case for Christ,” “Cold Case Christianity,” or “Evidence that Demands a Verdict,” to name a few. The backgrounds of the authors vary: a legal affairs journalist who went from atheist when he began to Christian by the end, a former police investigator who specialized in cold cases and a trial lawyer. In the end, the decision to believe in the Resurrection and everything it entails is up to the individual. However, the fact of the Resurrection cannot be disputed, only denied.
(Philip Severi, a former Bishop resident, previously wrote a weekly column for The Inyo Register.)